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Love on the Marsh, a long poem in 100 stanzas, is described by Lochhead as'an extension of High Marsh Road'and'brother and sister to it'. The diary-like entries, a form to which Lochhead has frequently returned over the years, can also be compared to his work in The Panic Field. By turns earthy and ethereal, a pilgrimage through a landscape of grass and sky and tumultuous emotions, Love on the Marsh revisits the High Marsh Road with a new eye and finds in it the self-examining, self-discovering heart.

When New Provinces first appeared in 1936, it represented four years of planning, argument, and compromise, and an additional two and a half years of correspondence and editorial preparation. This prolonged effort was brought to a successful end with the publication of a slim collection of verse, the work of six writers, Robert Finch, Leo Kennedy, A.M. Klein, E.J. Pratt, F.R. Scott, and A.J.M. Smith. At the time it was published it received little critical attention and had even less popular appeal; after nearly a year the book had sold only 82 copies, 10 of them to one of the contributors. Only E.K. Brown, writing for University of Toronto Quarterly in 1937, seemed to realize that New Provinces'marked the emergence... of a group of poets who may well have a vivifying effect on Canadian poetry.'Since that time this small volume has been recognized as a monument in Canadian literature, a singular event in a literary process which stemmed from the origins of Canadian modernism and its beginnings in Montreal, marking the first collective effort to introduce poets who came to represent the new establishment. Michael Gnarowski's introduction tells the fascinating story of the genesis of the idea for the book and the difficulties that were encountered.

Charles Heavysege's chief and best-known work, the long-verse drama and tragedy Saul, was published in Montreal in 1857. Coventry Patmore, reviewing Saul in the North British Review, ranked it as the greatest English poem published outside Great Britain. Hawthorne, Emerson, and Longfellow were all enthusiastic in their praise, and the play went into three editions. Saul is a drama of 135 scenes containing the remarkable character of the fallen angel Malzah, who has been compared by critics to Shakespeare's Caliban. Itis a powerful presentation of the tormented soul caught in a world of order and universal degree. Its main interest is to be found in the psychological frankness - Saul's recognition of his demon resonates with the deeper implication of the recognition of the döppelgänger - and in passages of sinewy verse written with a directness that anticipates E.J. Pratt.

A book of pioneer life in Upper Canada, arranged in the form of a story. The author spent five-sevenths of his life among the pioneer settlers of Western Canada. The incidents in the story are taken from the active life of the pioneers of Western Ontario, among whom the author grew up. A keen observer, the reverend author has been able to produce a faithful record of the hardships, trials and successes of the hardy pioneers of the Niagara district, and all that magnificent country lying between the Niagara River and Lake Huron and Georgia Bay. It is needless to say, therefore, that the book possesses much historic value as a picture of Canadian life in the early days of this western peninsula. The book is one which will be read with deep interest by those of the old pioneers who remain, and ought to become one of the household treasures of the descendants of those pioneers for many generations.

Saul and Selected Poems is an original and useful introduction to the work and poetic personality of Charles Heavysege (1816-76), an important but currently neglected nineteenth-century Canadian writer. Heavysege was handicapped by a limited education and a lack of public support, yet nonetheless established himself in Great Britain and America as the'leading intellect of [the] Dominion'in a period when native literature was scantily regarded. His struggle to express himself and to find an audience for his work mirrors the dilemma of the émigré writer of his time. Heavysege's work is related in this volume to the early nineteenth-century English revival of poetic drama, and seen in the context of the Canadian cultural milieu of the 1860s. Saul is a powerful presentation of the tormented soul caught in a world of order and universal degree. Its main interest is to be found in the psychological frankness - Saul's recognition of his demon resonates with the deeper implication of the recognition of the döppelgänger - and in passages of sinewy verse written with a directness that anticipates E.J. Pratt. The text of Saul and'Jezebel,'selections from Jephthah's Daughter, an original commentary on the major poems, a bibliography, and a review of Heavysege criticism are all included in this volume. (Literature of Canada 19)

Raymond Knister had a strong sense of commitment both to his own career and to literature, particularly Canadian literature. In his ten working years he proved himself a prolific writer with wide-ranging interests. Although his work has appeared in many anthologies of Canadian literature, there remains a great deal of out of print or unpublished material. This volume brings together not only for his more well-known stories but also all his unpublished stories, a few travel pieces, and several examples of his literary criticism. Knister's stories are often strongly regional, and draw on rural Ontario for their setting and characters. Collected together here for the first time is a group of sketches dealing anecdotally with life in a village in southwestern Ontario. Also included are two stories arising from his experiences as a cab driver in Chicago in the 1920s,'Innocent Man,'and'Hackman's Night.'His essays focusing on literary matters and the traditions and problems of Canadian literature show a keenly critical mind. The First Day of Spring is an important rediscovery of one of Canada's best writers of the 1920s.

A Canadian love story about Robbie Smith, a 19-year-old mail carrier travelling the old gravel roadway (now Highway 124) between Cromaboo (Erin) and Gibbeline (Guelph). One day on his travels he sees Miss Mary Paxton, an unwed lady, 14 years his senior. He falls in love with her. And so begins our tale.

The Season-Ticket, published in 1860, is made up of a series of articles previously contributed during 1859 and 1860 to the Dublin University Magazine. Its quality of interest lies in its major purpose: the programme of a thorough going British imperialist who advocates “a three-fold policy for developing intercommunication between the motherland and the colonies.” In this work, Haliburton proposed that Great Britain subsidize transatlantic steamers between its ports and the colonies, complete the Intercolonial Railway and continue it to Lake Superior, and provide a “safe, easy, and expeditious route to Fraser's River on the Pacific.” Haliburton further argues for the substitution of a permanent colonial council of appointees from the colonies in place of the Colonial Office, and he raises the possibility of colonial representation in the British parliament.

Aside from Sam Slick, the book which gained Haliburton the greatest notoriety was The Letter Bag of The Great Western; or, Life in a Steamer, published in 1840. Much of this book was composed for the diversion of the other passengers on Haliburton's steamship voyage from Bristol to New York in 1839. The book's ostensible function was the advertisement of the advantages of travel by steamship, but few, after reading the passengers'accounts of their voyage, would, if they took them seriously, ever venture off shore. The book's principal sources of amusement – infirmities of the human body (seasickness), the peculiarities of spelling and grammar that arise from faulty or defective education, the cultural mores of other races and lower classes, and the outrageous punning.

This new volume of the Literary History of Canada covers the continuing development of English-Canadian writing from 1972 to 1984. As with the three earlier volumes, this book is an invaluable guide to recent developments in English-Canadian literature and a resource for both the general reader and the specialist researcher. The contributors to this volume are Laurie Ricou, David Jackel, Linda Hutcheon, Philip Stratford, Barry Cameron, Balachandra Rajan, Robert Fothergill, Brian Parker, Cynthia Zimmerman, Frances Frazer, Edith Fowke, Bruce G. Trigger, Alan C. Cairns, Douglas Williams, Carl Berger, Shirley Neuman, Raymond S. Corteen, and Francess G. Halpenny.

Alexander McLachlan in an eminent though neglected figure in early Canadian literature, and this reprint brings to the attention of Canadians today his representative work. Edward Hartley Dewart, editor of the original edition published in1900, recognized the importance of McLachlan's poetry as an integral part of Canada's cultural development. In his estimation McLachlan ranked second only to Charles Sangster.McLachlan, a Scot, emigrated to Canada West in 1840; his poetry reflects graphically the griefs and loneliness of pioneer struggles in an alien land. He was frequently called ‘the Burns of Canada,'and his style and emphasis on the democratic theme of brotherhood certainly reveal the influence of the Scottish poet. In lifestyle, however, McLachlan was more consciously Carlylean, assuming the role of ‘man of letters'in an effort to elevate the whole tone of man's thinking and to raise the cultural level of Canada. He was highly regarded – in its obituary notice the Guelph Evening Mercury discerned him ‘a true streak of poetic fire.'Many of McLachlan's early poems have nostalgic echoes of Scottish songs. In later years he responded fully to the bracing beauties of the Canadian landscape and to the social and political challenges of the ‘New Dominion.'The Scottish dialect gave way to a Canadian backwoods one, which proved effective in humorously satirizing the pretensions of the growing society.

A five-act tragedy in blank verse. The play is founded upon the old problem of an unnatural and ill-omened union between youth and age.

The Advocate, an historical melodramatic romance in prose, which makes use of English and French antagonisms in Lower Canada.